Beer: Ratings & Reviews

This beer is a contract brew produced by Breconshire Brewery for the Alleycat chain restaurants in Taiwan. Purchased and tasted at Alleycat’s branch in front of the Taipei Railway Station, Taipei City, the beer comes in a 500ml brown bottle as bottle-conditioned. Due to the fact that almost all of the bottles available were stored in the fridge at a very low temperature, I chose to have the only one stored at room temperature, but still during the pouring the yeast sediments managed to find their way into my straight imperial pint glass just as freely. NOTE: the back label specifies the hop variety used is Progress hops and the alc. is 4.2%abv., making me suspect if the beer has any connection with (e.g. inspired by?) the same brewery’s Golden Valley, as the latter also features Progress only at the same 4.2%abv.?

A: pours a translucent light amber colour, coming with a thick off-white froth apparently due to the liveliness of the yeast sediments in action.
S: the sour smell of yeast sediments dominates the nose, plus Progress hops’ citric aroma, semi-honey-ish and toffee-ish notes of biscuit malts and chocolate malts, etc. Quite fresh for a RAIB, actually.
T: semi-rough-textured and tangy initially, showing a mixture of malts and hop bitterness, echoed by light citric zing and a tinge of plummy sourness. Medium bitterness can be felt in the finish, where biscuity malts linger along with roast-malt-like aroma and a dry palate not far from a dry sherry even.
M&D: medium-bodied , softly-carbonated, refreshing on the mouthfeel. The flavour profile is okay, less hoppy and bitter than ideal, but a good entry point for Taiwanese drinkers to experience Bitter (or, Amber Ale, as named here to relate to the American take on the style [I guess]). All in all, this is an okay amber bitter, easy-drinking but could’ve been better with more bitterness.